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user13727833
Asked: 2020-07-09 05:06:13 +0800 CST

Virtual IP or Mac Binding IP for loadbalancer

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I am configuring LoadBalancing for my website which is hosted on 2 webservers. I have MAC binded static IPs for both the servers. For LoadBalancer also can I have a MAC binded IP or a Virtual IP without any binding is mandatory? I am referring to a physical load balancer. Mostly Cisco Router with LoadBalancing feature. .

router load-balancing nat load-balance virtual-ip

1 Answers

  1. Expand your definition of load balancing, it is more than inter-host services. For example, HAProxy's intro document defines load balancing broadly, including at the levels of link, network, and server.

    Those WAN routers are for path redundancy to the Internet, hopefully via different ISPs. This does not imply any server load balancing feature.

    Server load balancing means directing requests to an available backend host. Decide how you want to do this. When the application is HTTP based, extremely common to do this via a reverse proxy, HAProxy or similar. Or, you can swing IP addresses over to the active host in a scheme usually done with clusters. The latter is more network oriented (rather than a session oriented proxy), and was what you implied by referring to a virtual IP. Also, think about where you want to terminate TLS, to support HTTPS.

    Decide on an IP address plan. Provider independent IP addresses are nice when you have them. Otherwise, you will be relying on one ISP's address for the front end. You can switch between provider assigned, but DNS changes are not instant.

    Probably this load balancer will be a software implementation in addition to the router. As in, an appliance, probably virtualized. Traditional network gear doesn't do a lot of server load balancing, and if the vendor does that might be a different product than their routers.

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